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“And if I’m sick all year?”
“She might catch on,” Sarah says with a sympathetic smile as Mackie rubs my back. “It won’t take all year. I promise, we’ll know soon.” She types away on her phone, probably texting Trevor.
“And then what? What are we gonna do about it?” I ask.
Sarah looks at me and blinks.
“Whichever girls wrote things, I will claw their eyes out,” she says with an evil grin. “And as for any guy who wrote that…”
“I think we know what the boys would do,” Mackie finishes for her.
The boys have grown a lot over the summer and they’re getting bigger. Not just height, but muscles, too. Especially Aaron. Not Joel as much. I think he’s probably going to be tall and thin like his dad, not big and beefy like Aaron or even Miles. What I’m saying is, they definitely could kick someone’s ass if they wanted to.
I lie down on the bed.
This all sounds ridiculous.
It’s a stupid plan.
And an even worse situation.
“I’m going for a walk,” I announce, pushing myself off the bed.
“Okay, give me one—”
“Alone,” I say before climbing out my window and out onto the deck.
My house is an old Victorian one, and there’s a deck right off my window. I think it used to be a smaller balcony a long time ago, but somewhere in the last fifty years, it was turned into a deck. When I was little, it was falling apart and Dad wouldn’t let us up there, even though it looked like a fun place to hang out.
With lots of pleading and puppy dog eyes, Sarah and I convinced Dad to rebuild it over the summer. He enlisted the help of Joel’s dad, Aaron’s dad, Miles’s dad, and Nick’s dad, who is a contractor.
It came out amazing, and we’ve been coming and going through my bedroom window a lot ever since.
Of course, Dad was very concerned about the deck butting up to my window, so he had three stipulations. First, there would be a gate at the bottom with a combination lock that only we knew. And if we gave it to anyone but our group of friends, he’d replace it with a lock onlyheknew the combination to.
Second, Sarah and I had to sign a contract promising not to sneak out or we would lose any variety of privileges.
Third, he made the boys swear up and down that they would only ever come through the window for friendly visits and would never show up at my window for any sort of funny business.
Not that I’m interested in any sort of funny business, despite what those stupid rumors might say. I think that agreement is more for when we get older.
I walk down the stairs of the deck, push the gate open, and head down the driveway.
I’m staring down at the sidewalk, not paying attention to what I’m doing or where I’m going when I hear Aaron’s voice.
“Rae?”
I jolt my head up and try to contain my tears.
He sighs. “You already know? I was going to come talk to you. Come here,” he says softly, pulling me into his arms. Arms I immediately melt into because nowhere else ever feels safer.
“I’m sorry, pretty girl. I wish I knew who did it so I could knock some sense into them. Joel and Miles are pissed, too.”
I laugh, but not in a fun way.
“Don’t worry, Sarah is already hard at work on that front.”
“What?”
